WATT WORKS FOR ME - Owain Doull

After his Tour de France debut, the Welsh EF Education-Easy Post professional talks weight management and cross training

What’s been a big change since you started? When I was younger, I used to do some pretty stupid stuff in terms of weight loss, such as trying to eat just fruit all day. You can get caught up in the idea, especially as an U23, that you need to climb well, that you need to be smaller, lighter. A lot of guys have a similar experience with under-fuelling. Even now, I have to make sure that I eat enough because, on easier days, I’m prone to thinking I can postpone the next meal.

How has your training changed with the move from Ineos to EF? Ineos are renowned in the peloton for their big belief in volume and hours, in building a big foundation. That means you’re constantly doing 27-30-hour weeks. With EF, I do fewer hours, and I think that’s partly because of how the racing has changed, becoming a lot more aggressive and explosive. You have to cater for that with higher intensity and less volume, and it’s benefiting me. These days, on a three-hour ride, I’m often into a 20-minute effort from the moment I leave the door, with efforts all the way until I finish.